Cartoon-Off: XKCD

Last night I was out shopping for groceries at my local grocery store when I ran into none other than Randall Munroe, creator of the webcomic XKCD (and, it might be noted, the guy in the grocery store who pushes his cart extra slow and then stops right in the middle of the aisle, so you can’t get over to the candy section!). Before I could muster the courage to challenge him to a cartoon-off, as I knew I must, he had already removed his glove—a long silky stocking of a thing—and lofted it against my cheek, mouthing the words “cartoon off.” The game was on.

The Rules—each contender is to draw:

The Internet, as envisioned by the elderly.

String Theory.

Your favorite animal eating your favorite food.

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Katz draws the Internet, as envisioned by the elderly.

Munroe draws the Internet, as envisioned by the elderly.

Katz draws String Theory.

Munroe draws String Theory.

Katz draws 1999.

Munroe draws 1999.

Katz draws his favorite animal eating his favorite food.

Munroe draws his favorite animal eating his favorite food.

After all that drawing, I had a few questions for this Munroe guy.

Cartoon Lounge: Tell us a little bit about yourself and XKCD.

Randall Munroe: Well, I draw XKCD, a webcomic about stick figures who do math, play with staple guns, mess around on the Internet, and have lots of sex. It’s about three-fourths autobiographical.

I used to work at NASA in Virginia. It was nothing glamorous; I was just tasked with making code compile for obscure projects, and I wasn’t very good at it. Now I spend most of my time drawing pictures and looking at funny things on the Internet, which in retrospect is largely what I did at my old job, too. Maybe that’s why they kicked me out. I also program, read, and try to get outside once in a while (any longer in front of this screen and my skin tone might actually hit #FFFFFF).

C.L.: You say that XKCD isn’t an acronym for anything, but shouldn’t it stand for eXcellent Kids Can Dance? That would be a good comic (and inspirational for kids).

R.M.: Well, in the absence of peer-reviewed scientific studies of the subject, I can’t in good conscience assert that excellent kids CAN dance.

C.L.: What’s next for XKCD? A book? Television? A second Internet where XKCD is Google?

R.M.: Well, Google owns YouTube, and recently, I drew a comic about an idea for a YouTube feature—which they actually took seriously and implemented. So I’m thinking that maybe we’ll have a future where Google is XKCD. That’s a troubling prospect—every image search would just turn up erotic photos of electric guitars being played in the shower.

I know I should be used to it, but I keep being surprised seeing the ideas in the comic leak out into real life. It’s tempting to just write a comic called “EVERYONE MAIL RANDALL MUNROE TWENTY BUCKS”—maybe it would work, and I could just close down the XKCD store and sit on a beach and draw pictures and make snarky Reddit posts for the rest of my life. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go to plan B: insisting that XKCD is too big to fail, and I need a massive government bailout. If Congress questions me, I’ll just draw some graphs and their eyes will glaze over. The only person who would oppose me is Ron Paul, and I can leverage my contacts in the blogosphere to neutralize him by having his blimp grounded.

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